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House sponsors of a bill to cut back on the state’s new social studies tests asked the House Education Committee to kill the measure Monday afternoon, and the panel did so on a 13-0 vote.

“This bill is trying very hard to be responsive to what we’ve been hearing,” said sponsor Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon. She was referring to rising parent and teacher complaints about the amount of state testing.

But, she added, “We haven’t been able to work with our stakeholders on a solution that has been fully vetted.”

“We need to take a close look at the whole testing regime,” said her cosponsor, Rep. Dave Young, D-Greeley. He noted that another bill proposes a wide-ranging study of testing this summer and fall. That measure, House Bill 14-1202, received final Senate approval last week.

The social studies measure, Senate Bill 14-221, surfaced just last week, the brainchild of two Democratic senators from Jefferson County, Andy Kerr and Rachel Zenzinger. It passed the Senate 24-11 Monday morning and was immediately introduced in the House.

It proposed delaying next fall’s first 12th grade social studies tests for a year and then moving all three sets of tests to a “sampling” schedule under which an individual school would have had to give the test only every three years. The tests also are given in the 4th and 7th grades. Schools still could have administered the tests every year if they chose to do so.

The bill was criticized for doing too little about the testing burden and for singling out social studies. There reportedly weren’t enough votes on House Education to pass it on to the floor.

The panel also voted 10-0 to kill Senate Bill 14-185, which proposed creation of a “pay for success” method to fund early childhood programs. Sponsor Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, asked that the bill be killed, saying, “We have a lot of work to do to ensure we have the correct guardrails in place.” (Get more background on this innovative but complicated idea in this story.)

Senate whittles down its calendar

The Senate worked through a long list of education bills as it attempted to clear its calendar ahead of adjournment on Wednesday.

Perhaps the most significant for education was House Bill 14-1319, which received preliminary approval. It would create a new funding formula for the state’s higher education system that gives greater weight to enrollment and would base a modest amount of funding on institutional performance measures such as graduation and student retention.

There was no Senate debate; most of the concerns with the bill were dealt with before it reached the floor in the House. The bill gives substantial flexibility to the Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education in designing the new funding formula, which won’t go into effect until 2015-16.

Nearing the finish line

These bills received final Senate approval Monday but still require House consideration of Senate amendments before passage.

House Bill 14-1118 would budget $261,561 to provide incentives for rural school districts to offer Advanced Placement classes. It passed 21-14.

House Bill 14-1301 allocates $700,000 to the Safe Routes to School program, which provides information for students and parents about safe walking and biking to school, as well as grants for driveway and sidewalk improvements and similar work. It passed 24-11.

On the the governor

These bills have passed – or been re-passed – and are on their way to the governor:

House Bill 14-1085 – The Senate voted 20-15 for this bill, which provides $960,000 in funding for adult literacy programs.

House Bill 14-1156 – The House accepted Senate amendments and passed the measure 39-26. The $809,095 proposal would make 3rd-, 4th- and 5th-graders now eligible for reduced-price lunches able to receive free lunches.

House Bill 14-1288 – This is the controversial vaccination education proposal, which was amended to remove its original requirement that parents who choose to opt out of immunizations first receive education on pros and cons. The measure now basically requires the state to set up an immunization information website and requires schools to maintain and provide data on the number of students who haven’t had their shots. The House agreed to Senate amendments and re-passed it 39-25.

House Bill 14-1294 – The House accepted Senate amendments and voted 62-0 to re-pass this measure, which sets various data privacy and security requirements on the Department of Education.

Senate Bill 14-124 – This bill would set up a $2 million program to train leaders for turnaround schools. The House passed it 37-28.